A new deal for the French film industry with Amazon offers some good news after a difficult period for France’s movie business.
France’s film industry has found itself at a crossroads of late. One of the most famously protectionist film industries in the world has found itself in a sticky spot over the last few years. The pandemic, changing audience habits and the rise in power of streaming platforms have all combined to destabilise the subsidised model that has defined the French film industry since the 1990s.
We’ve seen Disney making power movies in the country, threatening to pull films like Black Panther: Wakanda Forever from cinemas in an effort to force the industry to shorten its lengthy theatrical exclusivity windows, whilst industry leaders have been trying to find a path forward that includes and appeases streamers whilst also ensuring that the French film sector maintains its cherished sense of national identity.
It’s been announced (via Screen Daily) that French filmmaking unions have now though signed a deal with Amazon’s Prime Video platform, giving us a hint as to where the future of the French film industry may lie. It brings the global streaming service deeper into the fold of France’s film production sector than ever before, an inevitability some might say, but includes guarantees that ensure that the films and programmes being made will invest heavily in local French production and promote gender and ethnic diversity.
The four-year agreement with France’s film industry has resulted in a slate of original projects and acquisitions being announced, with the streaming platform’s French chief, Brigitte Ricou-Bellan, revealing that the aim is to ensure that 40% of the platform’s output are homegrown French productions. When you compare that to the small amount of UK films and TV that make up the Amazon Prime Video service in the UK, it’s clearly a continuation of the French insistence on safeguarding the national identity of its film industry.
We’ll wait and see how deals with other streamers work out, but this deal offers a hint of the direction we can expect things to go in and represents a solid step forwards for an industry that has struggled to find a foothold in the months following the pandemic.
